Indian diplomat’s arrest: US seeks to calm escalating standoff

Washington: As the US-India standoff over the ‘barbaric’ treatment of an Indian diplomat in New York escalated, US Secretary of State John Kerry called India’s National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon to express his ‘regret’.

Expressing his concern, Kerry said this ‘unfortunate public issue’ of the arrest and strip search of India's Deputy Consul General in New York, Devyani Khobragade, should not be allowed to hurt ‘our close and vital relationship with India’.

Kerry ‘expressed his regret, as well as his concern that we not allow this unfortunate public issue to hurt our close and vital relationship with India’,” State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said in a readout of the conversation.

"The secretary understands very deeply the importance of enforcing our laws and protecting victims, and, like all officials in positions of responsibility inside the US government, expects that laws will be followed by everyone here in our country," she said.

"It is also particularly important to Secretary Kerry that foreign diplomats serving in the United States are accorded respect and dignity just as we expect our own diplomats should receive overseas," Harf said.

"As a father of two daughters about the same age as Devyani Khobragade, the secretary empathizes with the sensitivities we are hearing from India about the events that unfolded after Khobragade's arrest," she added.